Arasan Chip Systems launches Worlds first CE-ATA Host HDK

San Jose, CA -- Oct 3, 2005 -- Arasan Chip Systems (“Arasan”) today released the Worlds first CE-ATA Host Hardware Development Kit (“HDK”).  The CE-ATA Host HDK can be used by CE-ATA Controller ASIC and Hard Disk Drive manufacturers to build prototype platforms for testing their products.  It also acts as a reference platform to those companies developing CE-ATA stacks and their own host products.  The HDK has two connectors dedicated to CE-ATA and five slots supporting SD, SDIO, MMC 3.31 and MMC 4.1 cards.

The HDK is built using Arasan’s CE-ATA Host IP Core. The IP can be configured to support multiple slots.  The kit comes with Win CE 5.0 drivers, the source code of which will be provided to Microsoft Platform Builder 5.0 licenses and Arasan’s CE-ATA Linux stack binary.  Source code to the Linux stack compliant to kernel 2.6 is available for license.

Arasan has licensed it’s CE-ATA Host IP core to some of the founding members of the CE-ATA Association and many other large companies.  Over 25 HDK’s have already been sold to CE-ATA Controller manufacturers, CE-ATA Hard Disk Drive Vendors and Arasan’s IP customers.  Mr. Prakash Kamath Vice President of Engineering at Arasan says “Working closely with the CE-ATA controller manufacturers will ensure that Arasan is the first to test interoperability upon availability of the CE-ATA devices and also ensure that our IP is 100% compliant to the specifications.  Quality is the No: 1 concern at Arasan”.

Arasan CE-ATA Host IP core is an evolution of it’s Silicon Proven Standard SD/SDIO Host IP core and SD/SDIO/MMC4.0 IP core, both of which are in production.

The CE-ATA Host HDK’s can be ordered through any of Arasan’s Sales Channels.

About CE- ATA

CE-ATA was publicly announced in September 2004 at the Intel Developer Forum by a group of industry-leading companies specializing in various market segments. Discussions among these companies revealed a common question regarding the necessity of addressing storage in consumer electronics. Industry leaders were presented with the burgeoning demand for cost-effective solutions to enable the adoption of higher capacity digital storage afforded by disk drives into host systems such as handheld and consumer electronic devices. As such, it was realized that a collaborative effort to define a comprehensive solution for the storage interface would best serve our respective markets.

CE-ATA is based on the MMC electrical interface, using an optimized subset of the ATA command set to improve performance for multimedia applications in handheld and consumer electronic devices.

Through industry adoption of CE-ATA, consumers will have access to a greater variety of innovative products including digital music players, PDAs, personal video players, cellular handsets, GPS navigation systems, automotive devices, and various new and emerging applications. CE-ATA-based products will offer compatibility and interoperability with other CE-ATA devices to further enable the concept of mobility and "plug and play".
 
About Arasan

Arasan Chip Systems Inc. founded in 1995, is a leading supplier of Reusable Intellectual Property (IP’s) cores, semiconductors and electronic design services. Arasan’s product portfolio is focused on Bus Interfaces and includes IP’s for USB 1.1 & 2.0, PCI, SD/SDIO and CE-ATA technologies. Arasan’s products and services enable businesses to develop and leverage product design and development. Arasan Chip Systems is an executive member of SD Association (SDA) and Multimedia Card Association (MMCA).  Arasan is headquartered in San Jose, California, with design centers in India and support options available in Taiwan, China & Europe.